Dec 26 2008
How to improve your snow photos
Here in the Puget Sound we’ve been snowed in for weeks! All that wonderful white stuff is a refreshing break from out normal gray skies and it’s natural to want to capture your yard, loved ones, pets and Christmas lights.
The problem is, your camera’s job is to make everything a ‘netural gray’ color. This setting works perfect for most everything you take pictures of, except… snow.
Here’s a couple tips to help you turn those dark muddy photos into bright white snow pictures.
First – don’t trust your camera’s automatic settings.
palm trees in the snow
If you set your camera on auto, it will read all that white stuff and try to darken it.
Turn your camera dial to manual. On the Canon Power Shot and other point and shoot cameras that’s the symbol that looks like a camera/M. If you toggle through – you’ll find a setting that allows you to change the exposures. It’ll look like a slider bar that has plus and minus notches.
Your camera will still do all the heavy work – but you can over ride the natural settings. Change the setting to 1/2 up to one whole stop over. The palm tree on the right was taken at plus one stop.
Another problem – dark, muddy close-ups.
snow photos with and without flash
When you point your camera at the subject in the snow, the camera’s meter will read all that white and determine that there’s plenty of light to exposure your subject. However, if you are close-up simply overriding your camera’s decison about flash can help brighten things up.
Turn on the flash and it’ll help bring out the detail.
